PatsPropaganda

Honestly I tune the announcers almost entirely out and that’s if I’m not watching the game on mute, which I usually do for non-Pats games or ones they’re losing.

I relate this to sports radio too, where these guys have to talk for three hours and they have to provide a narrative, and they’re almost assured to say something dumb or have a forced take. Without forced narratives football can actually be pretty boring. 

I mean I think my blog is generally pretty boring because it’s realistic in its perspective. I don’t really deal in hot takes,  I like a calm level-headed, long-term strategic approach, but if you’re in the big media you can’t really do that. The team either has to suck or be headed for 16-0. Peyton Manning is either DONE or hanging in there for one last title run.

So I don’t really listen to who gets the credit or the blame from the announcers. Boiled down, it’s the Brady or Belichick debate. Would Belichick be the same failed coach in Cleveland without Brady? Or would Brady be just another out-of-the-league 6th round pick without Belichick? The media would have you believe one of them is along for the ride with the other.

But the truth is that they’re intertwined in a way that cannot be broken. Belichick was smart enough to evolve the team to Brady’s strengths. Brady worked hard enough to develop those strengths along with his weaknesses. Together they made what the Patriots are today and you can’t extract either of them from that equation.

As always it just goes back to IGNORE THE NOISE.

Yeah I think it speaks a bit to how the game has evolved and the need for physical presences inside the box who can cover. Moreso than old Will linebackers who might not have quite enough speed on strong safety types.

Someone like Patrick Chung has become much more useful as a player than he might’ve been when he first entered the league and was being asked to play more as a traditional back end safety. Now they can use him as a linebacker, only make him cover tight ends as opposed to slot receivers who lit him up early in his career.

It’s a very specific plan with the safeties. McCourty is back end FS in regular with Chung in the box. On third downs they’ll bring in Harmon to cover the back end and then use McCourty however they see fit whether it’s also on the back end in Cover 2 or in the box as a coverage guy.

I’m most curious to see how Richards evolves because the perfect player for this role would be a physical strong safety who also has the range to cover the back end. That’s a rare player but certainly one Belichick seems intent on trying to find.

YES YES YES. Not just depth either, it’s versatility. As I’ve written many times before tracking the defensive overhaul that started in 08/09 was a major area of focus for me as a blogger with a penchant for Xs and Os.

Belichick’s defense evolved from the Fairbanks-Bullough 3-4 defense. There are a couple different versions of the 3-4, but this one had 3 big defensive lineman who would “two-gap”, which means they’d attack their blocker, control him and cover both gaps to both sides. While those 3 were holding up the offensive lineman it was the job of the 4 linebackers to make the plays.

That’s where you can see the somewhat conservative roots of Belichick’s defensive philosophy. Not one that goes all-out attacking, but one that wins with physicality upfront and linebackers who can make plays.

What the defense has evolved to now is a merging of the nickel defense and the two-gapping principals so that they’re more effective against the pass one early downs. The problem with the old 3-4 is that you had three defensive linemen who weren’t overly concerned with pass rushing on early downs. Yes, guys like Richard Seymour
could pick up their tackle and carry him to the QB, but generally they were more concerned with controlling their blocker and making sure no one ran through either of their gaps.

Belichick still uses the 3-4 defense to teach in the early days of camp. This doesn’t mean they’re a 3-4 team anymore really, but it’s how the team learns to two- or one-gap, the communication calls, etc.

The lockout in 2011 pushed this transition forward because there was less time in camp to install so Belichick just went straight to the nickel front and a lot of those elements remain.

So now, really what you’re looking at is almost a more of a 2-5 defense than a 4-3 although that’s what it looks like. The two defensive tackles can be moved around to attack certain areas, and you’ll even see a mix of one tackle (Siliga/Branch) two-gapping while the other will be one-gapping (Easley).

The difference now is that there are just more athletes on the field, even in “base”, and they’re better equipped to attack the quarterback on early downs. And when you look at  what the DE/LBs on the roster can do, it gives Belichick/Patricia so many options to confuse.

That’s another big tenet of the original 3-4 that has carried over – the ability to disguise. In the old 3-4 it was the OLBs that were the queen pieces because you could blitz or drop guys like Willie McGinest
/Mike Vrabel/Rosey Colvin. Now they can do the same thing with not only their OLBs like Donta Hightower

and Jamie Collins
, but with the DEs as well.